This archive report was first published on 11 July 2019.
On July 10, 2019, Kenya's High Court made a significant ruling in an inheritance dispute that has sparked debate about the rights of children born to widows.
According to Section 29 of the Law of Succession Act, Cap 160, children must have survived the deceased to be considered for inheritance. However, in this case, the court ruled that children born to a widow more than nine months after her husband's death do not meet this criterion.
Justice Lucy Gitari, the presiding judge, explained that such children cannot be regarded as having survived the deceased and are therefore not entitled to inherit his property. She also stated that these children are not considered dependents of the deceased's estate and are not entitled to the inheritance since the deceased had not taken them as his own and was not maintaining them before he died.
The case involved Ms. Milka Wanjiku and her step-mother Ms. Rose Wangechi, who were fighting over the sharing of the estate left behind by Wandimu Munyi, who died in 1985. Munyi was the father of Wanjiku and the husband of Wangechi.
Justice Gitari ordered the estate to be shared in five equal portions among the four children Munyi sired before his death, with the fifth portion belonging to Wangechi, the widow. She ruled that the four children are excluded as beneficiaries and that the distribution should be in accordance with the number of children, with the widow being an additional unit.
